Mira moved through the silent city like a ghost, notebook clutched tight against her chest. Every street looked the same—washed out, pale, unreal. Signs flickered overhead in broken neon, spelling words that vanished when she blinked.
She had lost track of how long she had been running. The notebook felt heavier with every step, as though the words inside were pulling at her bones.
She slipped into an abandoned train station, the echo of her footsteps ringing through the vast, empty hall. The old clocks on the walls were frozen at midnight. Dust lay thick on the benches, on the ticket booth windows, on everything. It was like the world had stopped breathing.
She sat down on the cold floor, pulling the notebook open. The last page she had written on was smudged and torn. But in the margins, someone had scribbled a new line in thin, spidery script:
*"You're almost out of time."*
Mira gritted her teeth. "I don't care," she whispered. "I'll keep going."
She gripped the pencil stub, pressing it hard into the page until the wood cracked beneath her fingers.
*"Mira would not vanish. Mira would write the ending herself. Mira would tear the walls down if she had to."*
A wind howled through the station, rattling the old doors on their hinges. The air grew colder, thick with static. She heard footsteps then—slow, deliberate, echoing from the far end of the hall.
She looked up.
Three figures stepped into view. They looked almost human, but their faces were blank, smooth skin where eyes and mouths should have been. Their clothes shifted and rippled, like ink bleeding across paper.
"Stop," one of them said in a hollow voice. "It's done. The story ends here."
Mira scrambled back. "No," she hissed. "I'm not finished."
The figures advanced. "It's not your choice," another whispered. "The script ends when we say it does."
Mira flipped to a blank page, scrawling furiously:
*"The figures couldn't touch her. The figures couldn't erase her. Mira burned brighter than their black ink."*
The world stuttered. The figures flickered, glitching in and out of sight. But they didn't vanish. They kept coming.
One lunged. Mira screamed, swinging the notebook wildly. The pages fluttered like torn wings, scattering around her. The figure slammed into her, its cold fingers clawing at her arms.
"Stop writing!" it hissed.
"No!" Mira shrieked.
She grabbed a handful of pages and shoved them into the creature's blank face. The words she had written hissed and burned, black ink smoking as it touched the thing's skin.
The figure shrieked, stumbling back. Mira shoved past it, sprinting across the hall toward the platform doors. The other two gave chase, their footsteps slamming against the tiles like hammer blows.
She burst onto the empty platform, rain pounding down in sheets. A single train car sat at the far end, doors wide open, lights flickering weakly inside.
*Go,* she thought. *Keep moving.*
She dove into the car, slamming the door shut behind her. The interior was dim, the seats torn and stained. She scrambled into the farthest corner, hugging the notebook, listening as the figures pounded against the door outside.
The lights flickered, buzzed, then died completely.
Darkness swallowed the car. Mira held her breath, her body trembling.
Then a soft voice whispered from the seat across from her.
"You can't run forever."
She jerked her head up. A figure sat in the shadows, face hidden, voice flat and tired.
"Who are you?" she breathed.
The figure leaned forward. A crack split across its face, and a pair of hollow eyes blinked open, bleeding black ink that dripped onto the floor.
"The end," it whispered.
"No," Mira said, clutching the notebook like a weapon. "This isn't the end."
She flipped to a fresh page and scrawled blind lines across it, her pencil scratching so hard the lead snapped again and again. The creature hissed, recoiling as the words glowed faintly in the dark.
*"Mira survives. Mira fights. Mira writes the ending herself."*
The train shuddered. The lights flickered back on. The creature screamed, its face tearing apart into static and smoke. Mira kept writing, kept breathing, kept *existing*.
When the creature vanished, the train fell silent. Mira slumped against the window, tears mixing with the rain on her cheeks.
She wasn't done yet.
Not by a long shot.